International news

Brazil World Cup legacy: more attacking, more goals

MatthewFutterman

Reuters

Robin van Persie of the Netherlands connects on a header to score one of the tournament’s signature goals.

RIO DE JANEIRO — The first signal that this was going to be a transformative World Cup arrived on the second day of the tournament. That’s when Holland’s Robin van Persie caught up with a masterful 51-yard bomb of a pass from the midfield, then nailed a diving header into Spain’s goal, part of a 5-1 thrashing of the defending world champions.

The next day, giant-killer Costa Rica swarmed a defensive Uruguayan team with three second-half goals, punishing the 2010 semifinalists for their passivity. Two days later, U.S. captain Clint Dempsey scored just 29 seconds into the game, his ears still buzzing with the parting words of coach Jürgen Klinsmann just before kickoff: “Attack!”

This week brought the ultimate onslaught — Germany’s merciless, 7-1 thrashing of host Brazil, which brought the whole concept of the “attack” to an entirely new level.

After years of timid, low-scoring play, that one word has become the theme of Brazil’s World Cup. When the history of this tournament is written, the sport’s cognoscenti will likely point to it as an event that changed the game. The finalists, Germany and Argentina, have survived the most offense-oriented tournament of the modern era, a series of games where playing defensively almost guaranteed an early exit.

“There is no clear defensive strategy anymore,” said France coach Didier Deschamps, whose, young, lightning-fast team romped through its group, scoring eight goals in its first two games. “I remember a few years ago, there were some very boring World Cup matches. Not this year. Now it’s end-to-end soccer, it goes from one box to the other, and it’s really entertaining,” he said.

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